Italy Verdi, Don Carlo: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala Orchestra and Chorus / Riccardo Chailly (conductor). Livestreamed on Medici.tv from Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 7.12.2023. (JPr)
Production:
Staging – Lluís Pasqual
Sets – Daniel Bianco
Costumes – Franca Squarciapino
Lighting – Pascal Mérat
Video – Franc Aleu
Choreography – Nuria Castejón
Cast:
Philip II – Michele Pertusi
Don Carlo – Francesco Meli
Rodrigo – Luca Salsi
The Grand Inquisitor – Jongmin Park
A Monk – Jongmin Park
The Monk (Charles V) – Huanhong Li
Elisabeth of Valois – Anna Netrebko
Princess Eboli – Elīna Garanča
Thibault – Elisa Verzier
The Count of Lerma / Royal Herald – Jinxu Xiahou
A Voice from Heaven – Rosalia Cid
Flemish envoys – Chao Liu, Wonjun Jo, Huanhong Li, Giuseppe De Luca, Xhieldo Hyseni, Neven Crnić
Verdi’s 1867 Don Carlos (subsequently Don Carlo) had a very chequered history which involved a certain amount of neglect until the middle of the twentieth century. From a libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle based on Schiller’s 1787 dramatic poem Verdi produced a five-act work in French à la Meyerbeer, set in mid-sixteenth century Spain. The plot issues were basically the timeless ones of love, politics and religion and involved a first act preface in the forest at Fontainebleau, the San Yuste monastery cloister of Charles V’s tomb, the monastery garden, the city square in Valladolid outside the cathedral complete with a site for burning heretics, and the gardens of the queen in Madrid where women could be entertained. But there was more: the plot’s tragedy encompasses other scenes in the king’s gloomy study, a dark dungeon where Don Carlos is imprisoned and a return to the cloister for a strange denouement.
The opera was exactly as long as all this sounds and during its original (apparently) 270 rehearsals Don Carlos needed substantial cuts. The opening of Act I was dropped and some duets were either cut completely or were shortened. Further changes were made after the Paris premiere in March 1867 after which the libretto was translated into Italian as Don Carlo, for further performances in Naples (1872), Milan (1884) and Modena (1886) with Verdi working on the opera every step of the way. Initially, he continued to concentrate on the duets but by the time the work reached Milan, the whole of Act I had gone resulting in the so-called ‘Milan version’. Further changes were made in Modena to produce a five-act version which is sometimes staged and is regarded as Verdi’s last thoughts on the opera. Only after the famous Luchino Visconti production of this ‘Modena version’ in 1958 at Covent Garden did Don Carlo – after decades of indifference – become more regularly performed and recorded. For Catalan-born theatre director Lluís Pasqual’s new production at La Scala what we saw and heard was predictably the four-act ‘Milan version’.
Nevertheless, the tale that Don Carlo tells is still extended beyond its natural length and noticeably so in a production like this one where the auto-da-fé ‘celebration’ at the end of Act I is superfluous. Perversely the crowd scenes and the humiliation of the heretics does provide most of the dramatic fireworks (!) in the whole long evening, because elsewhere the chorus is just asked to sing where it sits or stands; as the principal singers do too most of the time.
Although Verdi and his librettists play fast and loose with historical truths there are undoubtedly some important issues in Don Carlo, relevant to the twenty-first century. Central to the plot is the oppression of the people of Flanders by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. We hear calls for freedom, about murdered children and Philip II, the King of Spain, sings at one point how ‘without bloodshed I could not bring peace’. Later Don Carlo – who supports the Flemish cause – sings of a nation of dying people stretching out their hands to him to ‘save a dying nation’. Surely no one watching Verdi’s opera now could fail to think about the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict and other similar ones. So that is the politics: the religion involves the Catholic church headed by the Grand Inquisitor who regards the Protestants in The Netherlands as heretics to be brutally subjugated. Love in the opera centres on the fact that Carlo was once betrothed to Elisabeth de Valois, a French princess, before she married his father, Philip II, and so is now his mother! Princess Eboli is also in love with Carlo and her jealousy will bring about Elisabeth and Carlo’s downfall.
None of the complex issues in Don Carlo which resonate with us today are addressed in this staging by Lluís Pasqual and his collaborators. It is so traditionally ‘stand and deliver’ and ‘thud and blunder’ Verdi that it could have been put on at any time during the last century and more. We even have performers of ‘limited stature’ involved in Eboli’s Act I ‘entertainment’ and I had to double-check it was 2023!
Daniel Bianco provides basically a single set featuring a stage deep, alabaster panelled central tower which can open and close and this is on some stage-wide steps on which the chorus will mostly do their sitting or standing. There were scene setting grilles for the Act I monastery, and prison bars came down in the final act. Some silhouettes were shown on the closed cylindrical ‘tower’, such as two large laurels for Elisabeth’s garden, a full moon, and a large cross notably for Philip II’s study in Act III. Franca Squarciapino’s sumptuous costumes, black mostly – though some gold – seem authentic for mid-sixteenth century Spain; think, bejewelled gowns with typical hairstyles of the time, doublets and ruff collars, breastplates and helmets.
Most of the budget – which must have been enormous – was blown on the huge golden altar piece showing the Stations of the Cross during the auto-da-fé scene. We initially see it from behind with the walkways looking like the fire escapes on an old tenement building before it rotates to, firstly, show Philip II in the central niche and then the Grand Inquisitor in his vestments. The bloodied, nearly naked, hooded heretics are dragged in and consigned below ground and the burning is not elaborated on with simply some small flames shown. At the end of the opera while Eboli engineers Elisabeth’s escape from the vengeance of Philip II and the Grand Inquisitor, Don Carlo climbs on a statue of Charles V and sinks below the stage as his white-robed grandfather surprisingly comes back from the dead.
If Lluís Pasqual’s Don Carlo does anything positive it is to put the focus on the singers, conductor and orchestra. The singing was uniformly excellent and as good as you might expect to hear these days. The cast’s acting abilities were not tested since they were mostly rooted to one spot on the stage and facing forward and it was left to their expressive voices to show any genuine emotion.
Francesco Meli sings with a lovely open-throated tenor sound from his Act I ‘Io l’ho perduta!’ through to the farewell duet ‘Ma lassù ci vedremo in un mondo migliore’ with Elisabeth in Act IV. However, he is a very undemonstrative singer where vocal excellence seems paramount to him and secondary to making his relationships with others onstage appear real. Baritone Luca Salsi as Roderigo delivered intelligently crafted text with burnished tone and seamless legato and ‘Io morrò, ma lieto in core’ capped off his reasonably convincingly death scene. Earlier Salsi resisted Philip II’s entreaties with authority, as Michele Pertusi sent a chill down the spine with his hushed intimations of the Grand Inquisitor’s nefarious intentions. I understand that on the night Pertusi was not 100% but that was only heard in his bass voice on one or two occasions. Overall, it is hard to imagine a more convincing portrayal of a hectoring and intimidating king succumbing to paranoia than Pertusi’s, albeit one laced with vulnerability as evinced by his extremely moving ‘Ella giammai m’amò’. Nothing in this opera is more terrifying than Philip II’s confrontation with the Grand Inquisitor in the third act. Jongmin Park perhaps does not have the bass sonority Ain Anger – who he replaced because of illness during rehearsals – would have had, nevertheless his sombre tones made the Grand Inquisitor’s fanatical rage very clear.
Mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča is one of the leading singers of this generation and as Princess Eboli displayed tremendous vocal agility, secure high notes and warm chest tones. Her Verdian mezzo villainy was typically larger-than-life and not far removed from that of her Ortrud I watched her sing recently (review here). In Act III Eboli gives voice to her remorse – about doing with Phillip II what she accuses Elisabeth of getting up to with Don Carlo! – and Garanča’s ‘O don fatale’ was one of the highlights of the performance and has it been bettered in my experience, I am not sure.
Last, but in no ways least, it was wonderful to have Anna Netrebko in such radiant and imperious form as Elisabeth and giving us such a multi-faceted account of Don Carlo’s unobtainable love. Netrebko was authoritatively regal, defiant and passionate, with her ‘Tu che le vanità’ stopping the show because of the huge ovation it received. Perhaps there wasn’t as much of the human fragility some might bring to the role, and which made Netrebko’s Elisabeth a first cousin to her Turandot.
The rest of the cast and the chorus splendidly supported the principal singers. As expected, Riccardo Chailly proved completely at home in this music and generated compelling Verdian drama. Chailly highlighted with conspicuous detail the contrasts between the braggadocio of the public pronouncements in Don Carlo with its troubled undercurrents. His orchestra was exemplary, notably the horns and the woodwinds, and there was a virtuosic cello solo for the Act IV prelude leading to Philip II’s monologue. Finally, is it my ears or has Verdi’s music for Don Carlo been heavily influenced by Wagner?
Jim Pritchard